On the boulevard of broken dreams...

From Miles ‘live’ at The Blackhawk to Juliette Greco – you get the connection – a fine listening experience...a romantic liaison between the ultra-cool of 50s America and French song...notes and words float through smoke from Gauloises and Marlboro...this imaginary interior, combining a Parisian cellar bar and Birdland...such a place can only exist in your mind’s eye...your dream wills it into existence...

   Then, ’round midnight, you walk the monochrome streets of this dream...they glisten from a recent shower and echo to the feint sound of Bud Powell’s piano...Dexter Gordon’s saxophone...ghosts in exile...this must be Paris but you glimpse Miles being lead away by a cop, blood splattered down the front of his jacket...

   You walk with no direction in mind...you seem to be floating, seeing the streets as if through the eye of a camera...and here comes a figure, a woman. As she nears you recognise her...it is Jeanne Moreau. You would speak but in this world you have no voice...you pass each other...she is untouchable and you would not want to touch her because that would break the spell...she is destined to remain elusive and perfect for that very reason...

   Now Juliette is singing ‘La Chanson de Catherine’ which triggers a switch to colour, another time and place...where Miss Deneuve is strolling the streets in her mac...this is Cherbourg? Juliette’s voice has faded, replaced by the music of Michel Legrand, and you feel joy to be in such a brilliant place surrounded by lush orchestration...sights and sounds which overwhelm you...sensations amplified by the appearance of a dance troupe moving through a perfectly colour-coordinated world...

   It cannot last forever and as much as you wish that it would, you know that these visions are destined to be ephemeral, real only in the moment, not even memories for longer than the first few seconds of awakening...